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Logic is the sharpest tool in the toolbox of reason — it reliably takes a scientist or engineer from a set of assumptions to a set of sound conclusions.

If the assumptions are true, then logical deductions derived from them must also be true. (Here, when I say "logic", I am including its conjoined-twin, mathematics).

The trouble is, even in science, we rarely start with a complete set of true assumptions, so logically valid conclusions are rarely perfectly true. This is why in science and engineering we appeal to the real world through experiments, to test the reality of our theoretical conclusions. If experiments contradict our conclusions, we check our logic. If that's correct, then we need to change our original assumptions.

Unfortunately, logic alone is powerless to generate new assumptions, so to do this we have to rely on creativity, just like a poet, painter, musician or writer.

There's no reliable recipe for generating new ideas and assumptions about the universe, so we have to rely on several unreliable tactics. I'm going to describe three — I suspect there are more.

Two roads to new ideas

The first is analogy — look at another well-understood phenomenon that looks similar and apply the rules of that phenomenon to the one you're studying and test if they work.

Newton took Kepler's laws of planetary orbits around the Sun and drew analogies with Galileo's laws for the motion of cannonballs on Earth and from this, developed the laws of mechanics and gravitation. However, Rutherford suggested applying those laws to electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom — it kind of worked, but not well. So we needed to develop quantum mechanics to correctly explain atoms.

The second strategy is like the crammed white-board you see on all crime investigation TV shows — laboriously list all observations about a phenomenon, make lots of graphs of the data until almost accidentally, a mathematical pattern emerges that might point to a deeper reason.

This is how Mendeleyev worked out the periodic table of chemical elements; he listed properties of elements on cards and rearranged them until he found a repeat pattern. His pattern (initially without an explanation) pointed the way for quantum mechanics to explain atoms. Likewise, Crick and Watson elucidated the structure of DNA by shuffling molecular models around until they found a way to fit them together smoothly, consistent with Rosalind Franklin's x-ray diffraction patterns of DNA.

Sometimes scientists say stupid things

But, there's a third way — try something stupid. The problem with the first two ways of generating new ideas, is that you look at the problem with the same tired old eyes, locked into pre-existing thinking which can hold you back. Sometimes the correct answer is so different from existing ideas that you need a stupid idea to de-rail your mental train, even if at first it seems implausible.

When things get hot, they start to glow red. As temperature increases, the colour changes to orange, yellow, white then bluish-white. This pattern of colours versus temperature is called (for technical reasons I won't explain) 'black-body radiation'. By 1900, physicists still couldn't explain this pattern of colours even though it seemed they understood the physics of light. Everyone assumed that light waves washed over an object, warming it up gradually by smoothly depositing energy into it, like a sponge absorbing water.

Instead, Planck explained the colours by assuming that objects absorb light energy in chunks ('quanta') of definite size — like someone scooping up water exactly one spoonful at a time. Planck was uneasy with his idea and regarded it as only a mathematical construct giving the correct answer.

So here's the stupid bit. Five years later, Einstein suggested a nutty idea — light waves are actually composed of grains, chunks of energy (now called 'photons'). The idea was so silly that Einstein's mentor, Planck, in a letter recommending him for membership of the Prussian Academy of Sciences wrote: "...he may have missed the target in his speculations... in his hypothesis of the light quanta, cannot really be held too much against him, for it is not possible to introduce really new ideas... without taking a risk."

In other words, Planck was almost apologising to the Academy because although Einstein was very clever, he was young and took an intellectual risk and ended up saying something a bit stupid. I wish I were that stupid — this work led to Einstein's Nobel prize.

Another example was the pioneer of radio, Guglielmo Marconi (pronounced 'Gool-yell-maw', not 'Googly-Elmo'). His experiments to transmit radio signals across the Atlantic were criticised by some physicists. The Earth is round and the equations of electromagnetism require radio signals to travel in straight lines so they wouldn't bend around the Earth's curvature, so his experiments were stupid.

Marconi tried anyway and it worked. The physicists' logic and mathematics were absolutely sound. The problem was their assumption that above the atmosphere was only empty space. Trying to explain Marconi's success led to the discovery that at the top of the atmosphere is the ionosphere which reflects radio waves back towards the Earth. Marconi's stupid experiment launched a new technology, but also led to the discovery of the ionosphere.

Will I end up looking stupid?

Don't get me wrong — most stupid ideas DO end up being nothing more than stupid. But to find nuggets of truth, you'll also pick up a lot of worthless rocks — and you'll need to work hard to turn your stupid ideas into science.

But the nice thing about being young is that everyone expects you to make mistakes, so they are more likely to forgive you for saying something silly. So, be prepared to take an intellectual risk!

Many of the scientific discoveries described above, were made by people in their 20s. When you get older, you spend so much of your career proving you're reliable and worthy of research grants, that it sometimes gets in the way of researching really interesting ideas.

So, don't waste time wondering if you're clever, or old enough to come up with a good idea. Take a risk and think new thoughts, even if at first they seem a bit stupid.

About the author:Dr Stephen Bosi is a research medical physicist in radiation oncology at Prince of Wales Hospital, seeking new ways to use ionising radiation to detect and treat cancer (and other conditions). Dr Bosi is on a panel at the Young Minds conference this Friday arguing why 'It's cool to be a geek'.